My Life
by Jclimactic
Summary: A post Valkyrie fic. Castle's life hangs in the balance, and he has no desire to sit idly by as the hours slip away, no matter what the AG Task Force may want. [Contains mild spoilers for Dreamworld promo, but I fiddled with that even, then all speculative.]


**Disclaimer: Yeah right. I don't own Castle.**

**A/N: Obviously all pure speculation. Stick through the opening bits, it seems harsh maybe, but it'll get better.**

C*B*C*B*C*B*C*B*C*B*C*B*C

"We're exploring all investigative avenues."

The words sounded completely hollow to him, it was what an investigator said when they had no leads, nothing onto go on. He met Kate's eyes, which simply stared right back into his own, "That's what you say when you have nothing."

It was worse really, that was a rehearsed line, one spun out to attempt to placate any run of the mill victim, not what he expected to hear from his fiancé. She'd seemed detached through it all, trying to maintain professional image, keep him calm, it was hard to tell. He nerves were eating at him, stress making his mind wander.

Castle looked on, shocked as Kate stood and approached the interrogation room door, "You're leaving?"

She looked back over her shoulder, body still facing away, still facing the door, "I have a job to do Rick, doing that will save your life."

He was tempted to stand, to follow, but held himself back for now, "I want to come with you."

"No, you have to stay here, stay out of this, we are going to handle it. It's classified Rick, you can't be involved."

As far as he was concerned he was already involved, "This is my life. You don't get to decide everything for me. I should get a say here."

Kate opened the door, shaking her head, speaking for the last time as she left the room and closed the door behind her, "Sorry Rick, I'm going to do everything I can, but you have to stay here."

Outside the door Kate was leaning against the wall, pressing her forehead against, holding in the urge to scream and pound her fists into the wall. She struggled to control her breathing for a few moments, fighting her emotions to maintain the profession facade she need in order to stay assigned to the case.

She heard footsteps then McCords voice over her shoulder, "Well done Beckett. You kept it professional, and that's important. This is our case, and you can't let emotions get in the way. We have a toxin to find."

Without lifting her head from the wall Kate responded, "Can you give me a moment? I just fed my fiancé a generic line about following all leads. I'm staying professional here, but give me a second."

McCords hand fell on her shoulder, pulling her round to be face to face, "This job requires a certain analytic detachment, you know that Beckett. Which is why his involvement is such a problem. You cannot let your relationship hold you back from your work, and certainly not get in the way. You made a mistake with that photo, it can never happen again."

Beckett faced her senior agent, "I was momentarily distracted, it was a simple mistake."

McCord quirked her eyebrow at her, "In this job simple mistakes get people killed. On the training exercise you got shot because of a simple mistake. Now he is poisoned because of another. These kind of mistake cannot happen. Just remember you are not to blame for his condition, he is. He poked his nose where it didn't belong and now he's going to pay a price."

Kate twitched at that, it sounded like McCord had already given up on him, "We're still looking for the anti-toxin, he doesn't have to any price yet, I won't let it end like this."

"Beckett, let me be clear: our priority is finding the toxin and preventing a terrorist attack, not the anti-toxin which could be in an entirely separate place. You have your orders, go run background on everyone Bronson ever worked with in the service. We can save more lives this way; focus on the toxin and saving future lives, not the past."

Kate stood froze as McCord walked away, processing the thought. Her senior agent had written off her fiancé, he wasn't a priority, just collateral damage to the case. She didn't particularly want to go back to her desk, but really wanted to go back in to see Rick. She'd missed time with him for six weeks, so determined to focus all of her available attention on the job opportunity, but now she had a new context; only 24 hours left to spend with Rick in any capacity.

She was still trying to make up her mind, time with him but accomplishing nothing to save him, or back at her desk, time back in the job, but missing potentially the last few hours they had apart like the last weeks. The problem bounced around her head, time apart, time together, life, death.

She was jarred out of her mental spiral by banging on the inside of the interrogation room door. Quickly moving to the door she saw Rick standing close on the other side, he didn't look as worried of scared anymore, instead he looked a little excited.

"I remembered something Kate. A clue."

There was a spoke of adrenalin, hope that he could given them something to work with to narrow the scope of the search.

Her excitement bled into her own voice, "What? Quickly Rick! Minutes count."

"Bronson said something about Dreamworld too. After Valkyrie."

A professional tone came back, "Did you tell Villante? The team is probably already working the lead Rick."

He winked at her, never a good sign, "I didn't tell him. He lost interest in answers after he got the Valkyrie name, just assumed he had everything he wanted I guess. Didn't want the whole story, just enough to fill in his report."

She was intrigued again, new information, "What else do you know about it?"

"Nothing from Bronson, he died right after he mentioned it. Espo knew of it though, it's a military black ops ghost base in the gulf. This is a military toxin or you wouldn't have a doctor from Walter Reed coming over. There has to be a connection."

It was new information, a data point the task force wasn't working yet; she had to get it on the lost of potential leads immediately. "Rick I need to tell people, sit back down and wait here. I'll be back when I can."

With that she pulled the interrogation door closed once again, the lock clicking and ensuring it could only be opened from the outside. She walked quickly down the corridor into the main task force operations center, catching McCord eye immediately and directing her to Villante's office.

She wasted no time when she was joined, immoderately breaking out the new lead, "Castle remembers Bronson bringing up Dreamworld as well as Valkyrie. It's an overseas military installation apparently." How ever Esposito had come up with the name she wasn't going to break confidence here.

Villante immediate typed the name into is classified search of, drawing a complete blank. His response was predictable, "A dead end Beckett. If it's even true, he didn't mention it during my interrogation of him. You sure he's not just making it up now?"

McCord chimes in too, "We have better leads to find the toxin, tracing Bronson's known associated. Which is what you should be doing right now, instead of this wild goose chase you're on instead."

Kate was feeling slight irritation, they were missing the point entirely, "If we can find someone or something connected to Dreamworld they may have access to the anti-toxin. We can save Castle's life."

Villante stood from behind his desk, leaning forward, "You have already been told Agent, the toxin is our priority, not the anti-toxin. If Dreamworld even exists, it is authorized to have the toxin, as such we don't care. Our priority is preventing more deaths, not saving Mister Castle's life. Drop this Dreamworld nonsense right now, it's not important to our case. Your orders are clear, get to work agent."

Kate felt she'd been thrown out like a scolded child, the nature of her position as a junior agent me at she did not have the discretionary power had in the past as a homocide detective to redirect an investigation simply on her own instincts. Her gut told her there was something to this though, Dreamworld set her sense tingling.

A new choice faced her, no longer just about staying here and investigating, versus spending the last few hours with Rick, even if in an interrogation room. There was potentially hope, another option, spending the last few how's with Rick, chasing down a Dreamworld lead, saving his life. It meant disobeying a direct order, shifting priority directive or herself from the AG's focus on the toxin, to her own on keeping her fiancé alive.

It was fairly clear her subconscious had made the decision when she found her hand once again on the interrogation room door. Pushing it open for hopefully the last time to see Rick poking at the band aid where s blood had been drawn.

"Rick? Quietly ok! Let's get out of here, we have a lead to follow."


End file.
